Farmington will ask voters for $700,000 balance on new library

If local taxpayers approve a November referendum, a new library might be built here after all.

Four months after voters shot down a new library building - for the second time - the Farmington Area Public Library District has learned it is eligible for a state grant which could provide from $1.5 million to $1.6 million of the estimated $2.6 million construction cost.

If local taxpayers approve a November referendum, a new library might be built here after all.

Four months after voters shot down a new library building - for the second time - the Farmington Area Public Library District has learned it is eligible for a state grant which could provide from $1.5 million to $1.6 million of the estimated $2.6 million construction cost.

Rather than the $2 million voters were asked to supply last spring - already a significant drop from the original $3.69 million proposal - a referendum will be placed on the Nov. 6 ballot seeking $700,000 in bonds to be paid back over 20 years. The annual cost to the owner of a $100,000 home has shrunk from last spring's $37 to $11.86.

"Is anybody ever going to give Farmington a million and a half dollars?" said Library Director Barbara Love. "This is huge."

The current Carnegie building is 106 years old and wedged into a small lot on the main street in Farmington. It is not handicapped accessible. Even downsized, the new building is three times larger. It would be built on four acres across from the new school complex on the east side of town and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"A new public library in a community can be such a force for change and transformation," said Anne Craig, director of the Illinois State Library. "It's such a wonderful thing. It really, really is."

The library grant act is administered by the office of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, through the state library. There was $50 million available in fiscal 2013, but the formula in the law requires $10 million to go to Chicago. To secure its grant, Farmington must show proof it has the local share of the money by next June. If voters approve the $700,000 referendum, the library will use its reserve to make up the remainder.

According to Craig, once those funds are set, Farmington is good to go. In the same manner as grants for schools, she said, funds will be disbursed as construction takes place.

"That project will roll right along," she said.

The Farmington library is one of 47 libraries which submitted requests for more than $112 million in Illinois Public Library Construction Act grants. Fifteen downstate libraries qualified.

"This is good news," said Love. "For about a dollar a month, we can have a new library."

Terry Bibo can be reached at 686-3114 or terry.bibo.freelance@gmail.com.